Is the Tank Man is still alive? According to a report yesterday from Hong Kong-based newspaper Apple Daily, the young Chinese man who single-handedly blocked a long column of the Chinese military’s tanks on Chang’an Avenue during the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 is still in prison. His real name is Zhang Weimin, and he was imprisoned twice after the Tiananmen Massacre. For years, the Tank Man’s whereabouts remained a mystery. Citizen Power, a.k.a. Initiatives for China (CP/IFC) is highly concerned about this new clue. The Tank Man’s photo, one of the most influential images of all time, inscribed his heroic act into history. The image continues to stand as a symbol for one individual’s defiance of state violence. For twenty-eight years, the whole world has been asking where the Tank Man is, but there have never been any reliable clues – he has never been...

My Supporting Voice for Our Tiananmen Brothers Göran Lindblad Again approaching the day to remember the heroic peaceful protests by students at Tiananmen Square 1989. The totalitarian communist regime responded to the non-violent manifestation with brutal force. Tanks against unarmed shocked the world. As time flies, and current world events consumes daily news media attention, we now, 28 years later need to commemorate and remember the heroes as well as not forget the perpetrators. The best symbol of the Tiananmen protests and regime massacre is of course the Tank Man. The young protester, holding his shopping bags, standing in front of, and seemingly stopping the tank column. The pictures of Tiananmen Man spread epidemically in the world media at the time. However it is still, now today a very powerful message of the importance of individuals can make a...

The National Interest Is China Trying to Turn the Tiananmen Square Massacre into Fake News? Beijing has sought to use its leadership position in the UN system to obliterate the memory of Tank Man and Tiananmen Square. Dennis P. Halpin June 6, 2017 George Orwell, who understood the close connection between control of messaging and the shaping of history, wrote in his classic work 1984 that “who controls the past controls the future.” Never has this been truer than in the age of the internet. The communist leaders in Beijing, spiritual soul mates of Orwell’s shadowy but omnipotent “Big Brother,” realize the critical need to rewrite history for ideological purposes. Thus, it was reported as another anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre was commemorated-perhaps not surprisingly-that Facebook had made a big bow to Big Brother. The online...

06/02/2017 09:12 am ET By Yang Jianli and Aaron Rhodes UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program is “an international initiative launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction.” But what events deserve a place in this ambitious and influential project? Today the Memory of the World Program faces a crucial test of its intellectual and moral integrity: Will it include photographs of the “Tank Man,” that is, images of the young Chinese man who, in 1989, heroically stood his ground before a line of army tanks on their way to Tiananmen Square? The photographs are already among the most well-known in the world. The Tank Man’s image is seared into the world’s collective consciousness as an icon of courage, sacrifice, and peaceful protest,...

NATIONAL REVIEW Remembering Tiananmen Square – Including the Two ‘Tank Men’ by JAY NORDLINGER June 3, 2017 5:01 PM Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre – the 28th. I’m not much for anniversaries, so I’m writing today. A young man holding grocery bags stepped in front of a column of tanks. The lead tank tried to maneuver around him, but he kept standing in the way of it. Eventually, he climbed up onto the tank. He appeared to chat with someone in the tank. Then he climbed off. To see a video of this remarkable, historic event, go here. At some point, two people pulled him away. And that’s all we know. Who was – who is – “Tank Man,” as he came to be called? No one knows. Where is he? Murdered? Alive? No one...

–Commemorating the 28th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre by Yang Jianli June 3rd, 2017 I put it in an eye-catching place instead of the wine cabinet. Anyway, the cabinet is not big enough to place this bottle of liquor. This is the world’s most expensive liquor. which used twenty-eight years to brew. Across young to older ages, its raw materials are the blood of the warriors, tears of their beloved and the pain of countless people. This bottle of liquor traveled across Asia and Europe to my hands. Its journey started in southwest China from the hands of a brother whom I have never met. It is not for anyone to enjoy at the dinner table. It still has a long way to go, and I am designing its itinerary for more people in the world to see the...

By Didi Kirsten Tatlow May 30, 2017 BEIJING – It’s a big journey for a little bottle, even one so potent in alcohol and symbolism. The liquor bottle – whose label commemorates the 1989 crackdown on democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing – made a monthslong trip around the world and arrived in Hong Kong days before the 28th anniversary of the killings on Sunday and one year after it was produced in Chengdu, in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan. It was carried by hand, reportedly by a sympathetic Chinese official, from Chengdu to the Middle East and then by someone else to Paris, where it was mailed to Washington, arriving about four weeks ago, said Yang Jianli, a Chinese-born rights activist based in Washington who aided its passage around the world. Finally, coming nearly full...